Indiegama announces Army 21, their debut title for Windows PC (a reassurance that we didn't miss the first 20 installments in a series), saying this online action/strategy team combat game is already in the alpha testing phase. Those interested in the test can sign up on the Army 21 website, where they offer this trailer with a look at the game. This is the output of a one-person studio, founded by Tom Spencer-Smith, who has worked on AAA series including Command & Conquer, Need For Speed, FIFA, and Crysis, and the plan is to bring this to Kickstarter and Greenlight later this year. The developer offers a list of six tings that make this unique, which is more than six times what the average game could claim. Here's word:

1. The gameplay is pretty unique. It's a 6-team game, with a total of up to 60 players. Gameplay involves base warfare: you build up your team's base (a set of buildings), defend it, and destroy the bases of the other teams. When a base is destroyed, that team is defeated, and the players are reassigned to the remaining teams. This goes on until there is one team remaining. Its a mix of action and strategy played in first person. There are Co-op and Versus game modes. It's hella fun even with a handful of players.
2. The game appears simple but actually has a lot of depth. This is needed in part to tackle the chicken-and-egg problem of multiplayer games for unknown developers: players come when the game is fun; but the game is only fun when there are players. Solution: the game must be fun with no players, or with only a few players; i.e. the game needs to be fun when you're playing against Bots. I've added depth by having multiple simultaneous and differently-scoped objectives: you are playing to beat all 5 other teams and be the last team standing; playing to attain a higher difficulty level; playing to beat the best time and best points recorded for each difficulty level; and above all playing to gain a high Army Rank on the Worldwide Leaderboard. Army Rank is determined by your Skill, Reputation and Experience, and in turn gives you certain privileges, status and responsibilities within your team and within the game.
3. Army 21 is online-only, with the game servers and backend hosted by Indiegama. If the game explodes I'll be hosting many thousands of game servers. This is a pretty ambitious thing for a sole indie developer to attempt. I'm doing it because it is my passion and my area of expertise. You have to make the game you want to make.
4. This is a long-term project - a passion project. I actually started working on this around 2006! But around 2008 I got completely overtaken by game contract work. After many years I am finally back on it fulltime. And my intention is that it continues in active development for years to come, in partnership with the player community. In other words, my intention at Indiegama is to make ONE game!
5. Content-wise, the game is extremely procedural. That's really the only sensible way a solo indie dev like myself could make it. Almost all content is procedural. Consequently, there are infinite maps, and the download is tiny (6 MB, most of which is sound effects). In-game music is live internet radio.
6. Army 21 is an army as well as a game. I don't just mean in the shallow sense that the set of players who play it could be considered to be an army; I mean that its kinda the story behind the game; that Army 21 really is a new type of Army - a tool or means to find and train the most brilliant strategic military leaders from the entire population of the World. Like "Ender's Game", but with the gameplay happening in cyberspace rather than on a physical playing field. Why shouldn't we find elite military leaders of the future this way?